Gustav Jahn

Gustav Jahn (17 May 1879 – 17 August 1919) was an Austrian landscape painter, poster artist and mountaineer.

Early life and education

Gustav Jahn was born in 1879 in Vienna. From his youth, his true passion was mountaineering. He attended the private art school operated by Adolf Kaufmann starting in 1895. Then in 1896, at age 16, he was admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, studying with August Eisenmenger and Alois Delug. He was awarded the Gundel-Prize for excellence in 1899.

From 1900 to 1904, he studied with genre painter Franz Rumpler, and he became a member of the prestigious Austrian Alpine Club in 1901. He combined his interests by specializing in landscapes and genre scenes of the high mountains. As part of the Rome Prize, he won a Kenyon study scholarship in 1904, which he used more for climbing in the Mont Blanc area than painting. which won awards at the World Fair of Saint Louis in 1904. The cycle is lost except for one copy. Starting in 1898 as a student, he furnished the illustrations for the catalogs of "Bergsporthaus", a store selling mountaineering equipment owned by ski racer , which was the first of its kind in Vienna. Jahn was close friends with the painter Otto Barth, who also was an enthusiastic mountaineer.

His favorite mountaineering areas were the Rax and Schneeberg, Gesäuse, Dachstein and the Dolomites. He participated in the first ascent of the Große Bischofsmütze.

Jahn was a committed skier and ski jumper winning over twenty-eight awards during the course of his career. The cause of their fall remains unclear. It probably occurred at a key point of the wall, the Preuss crossing, which is difficult to secure (climbing grade IV-V).

A climbing route on the North face of the Hochtor is named after him (Jahnweg), as well as on the south face of the Große Bischofsmütze.